The present invention relates generally to call centers and other types of communication processing systems, and more particularly to systems which process communications received over a network, such as the Internet or other type of computer network.
Call centers distribute calls and other types of communications, e.g., e-mails, faxes, voice messages, text messages, Internet service requests, etc. to available service agents, in accordance with various predetermined criteria. It is becoming increasingly important that call centers be able to provide an appropriate level of customer contact treatment based upon the relationship and value a particular customer has to the business. Businesses are looking to support their customer segmentation strategies regardless of the form of contact a customer may choose to obtain service. Many customers are choosing alternate forms of contact into a business, particularly web-based contact over the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) network, and companies need to provide the appropriate treatment when customers choose such alternative contact media. More particularly, companies should be able to provide the best agent resource for a given customer should the customer choose to access the call center through an Internet connection. In addition, the customer should receive a level of service comparable to that provided if the customer had accessed the call center via a conventional voice connection.
Conventional techniques for determining customer treatment for communications received over IP networks generally require proprietary data about the originator to be embedded in the body of one or more packets. Unfortunately, such an approach is unduly complex and may be difficult to implement in many applications. Other techniques simply do not attempt to determine customer treatment for communications of this type. For example, customers that access a call center through the Internet may be provided service based upon a first-in, first-out (FIFO) model that is highly dependent on the arrival patterns of customer requests.
Existing call centers thus have difficulty handling communications received over IP networks with the same consistency and precision as voice calls. For example, voice calls from particular customers or groups of customers can be identified by a number of criteria, such as Automatic Number Identification (ANI), collected customer digits, or specialized 800 numbers, thereby allowing companies significant flexibility in determining how to prioritize and deliver the appropriate service. However, such techniques are generally not directly applicable to communications received over IP networks. Multiple Internet requests for service arriving at a call center will therefore generally all be handled in the same manner, due to the lack of distinguishing information available about the request originator.
The invention provides improved techniques for processing incoming network-based service requests and other communications in a call center or other type of processing system. In accordance with the invention, an incoming communication is received over a computer network, at least a portion of a network source address of the originator is determined, and information from the source address is utilized to select a particular type of treatment for the communication.
The computer network may be an Internet Protocol (IP) network and the network source address may be an IP source address. The communication may be a service request delivered from the originator to a call center over the Internet. The source address may be processed to determine, e.g., a particular individual corresponding to the originator, or a company name, company size, Internet service provider, geographic region, or other characteristic associated with the originator. Other examples of information that can be determined using the network source address include the internal or external status of the communication, and whether the communication is a business-to-business or home-to-business communication. In addition, information such as purchase history, profitability, perceived value, customer name and non-IP contact information can be stored or otherwise associated with the source address of a given originator.
These and other types of information determined from the source address of the originator can then be used to determine how the communication will be handled, e.g., provided with service within a designated time, handled by an agent having particular skills, etc.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a particular type of customer treatment provided based at least in part on source address includes a live agent support icon presented to a user via a web page. The activation of the live agent support icon is controlled via a set of rules specifying, e.g., particular users that will see the icon, particular pages, times, etc. for which the icon will be presented, agent staffing levels or skill requirements, etc. These rules control whether and how live agent support will be offered to particular users, such that a call center will not inadvertently overextend itself.
Advantageously, the invention allows more efficient handling of communications received over the Internet by allowing a call center to provide more appropriate customer treatment. Using the invention, consistent and precise customer treatment similar to that provided for voice calls can be provided for Internet service requests and other similar network-based communications received in a call center. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description.